As farming operations become more complex, managing harvest operations, including machine logistics such as fill capacity, becomes more critical to operational efficiencies and profitability. In one attempt to improve operation, a harvester may include sensors to alert an operator when the grain bin fill level reaches full capacity. The term “harvester” is used herein to include combines or other agricultural vehicles for harvesting and temporarily storing a harvested crop.
In a typical operation, the harvested crop is discharged or offloaded into a grain cart, truck or other storage transport vehicle for transportation to a market or other destination when the grain bin reaches full capacity. The offload operation may include driving the harvester to a location of a transport vehicle parked on a road near the harvest field, or bringing a transport vehicle to a location adjacent the harvest field for offloading. In some instance, the harvester may need to cease harvesting while the harvester is still in the field because of reaching full grain bin capacity. In either case, harvesting is interrupted to offload the crop.
It is desirable to provide continuous harvesting and avoid nonproductive time in which a harvester is idle while awaiting to unload a harvested crop. To improve operations, additional harvest information would be useful to plan and/or coordinate harvesting operations. Additional harvest information may include the ability to accurately determine where in the field the grain bin will become full. Such information would allow an operator to determine if the harvester can harvest to the end of a row without overfilling the grain bin and/or allow the operator to notify a grain cart operator where to be positioned to minimize travel distances between the harvester and transport vehicle.
The present disclosure is directed to overcoming one or more of the problems as set forth above.